false step
by VelvetyNightSky
Summary: Many a false step has been made by standing still. (Luke has nothing to do but stand still.) Or: Luke Lars is Darth Vader's mechanic. And, maybe, something more. He can overhaul ships, blow up the Death Star, and, hell, even fix up Vader. But he can't do any of that for himself. (Part two of three two one boom. Sequel to six hours.)
1. inertia

CHAPTER ONE

INERTIA

_The resistance, of any physical object, to any change in its velocity._

* * *

So Vader just blasts off into space and leaves Lars standing with a calibrator in one hand and treason in the other, that's it?

_Looks like it._ A muscle in Lars's jaw jumped as the shields snapped closed. Gravity and oxygen rushed back into the hangar and the servicemen all crowded the viewport, because it turned out there wasn't a damned thing to do in a space battle if you weren't flying the starfighter yourself.

He took one look out the viewport, green and red flashing brighter than the white stars, and turned away with a scowl.

_You better fuckin' blow that thing to hell, Darth, _Lars thought sourly as he slammed the tool back on to the console. A couple of stormies behind him jumped at the noise.

He stalked back out into the bay straight for the console of Vader's TIE Advanced-08. Hell knew what had happened to his first seven. Lars pulled up all the diagnostics, prepping it for reentry, and casually modified the entries of Vader's takeoff records to ignore the added weight and stress of the proton torpedoes.

"Shit, that was Sigma Four!" someone shouted over the clamor at the viewports. "That's Kekovitch's brother!"

Lars could hear the cries from across the bay as he mindlessly unscrewed the panel and pulled a multitool out of a pocket. _First blood._ The readouts were blurry, but all it probably needed was a couple realigned wires.

There were just whispers after Sigma Four. Someone was shouting. Lars patched up some insulation.

Now crying––something about parents. Lars straightened out three wires and vaguely wondered if he should tell them to shut up. He was in charge, wasn't he?

Lars scowled at the thought. He was here to fix the ships, and not another damn thing, no matter what Vader said.

Whatever. He slapped the side of the machine and the display fizzled and blinked. The calibrator still wasn't straight. TIEs had been out there fifteen minutes. Cheers from the servicemen, sort of. _Bloodied both sides. _Maybe another fifteen.

Twenty, thirty-three, sixty-eight. Someone was counting the bursts of fallen TIE explosions. Lars screwed the panel shut. What about the Death Star? The hell was taking Vader so long, anyway?

"Is that––Lord Vader? What is he _doing_?"

Shit. Lars kept screwing, arms not shaking, shoulders not tense, breathing not uneven, as his blood curdled.

"That's the Star!" shouted someone else. "They're headed for the Star!"

Lars abandoned the calibrator without a second thought for the viewports.

"Move!" he barked and pushed his way through. _Finally_.

When Lars came face-to-face with Vader––maybe only a couple klicks away from them––he was spiralling towards the side of the Death Star with an X-wing, easy to see in his modified TIE, and Lars snarled under his breath. The hell _was _he doing? If he missed the shot––all that talk about being the best fucking pilot ever––if he _missed––_

The sill of the viewport nearly crumpled under Lars's grip, before Vader and the X-wing shot up, a new ship––a _freighter?––_came tumbling out of nowhere and then––yes––Vader spun into the trench and then out again, leftward––_yes––_the Death Star––

––exploded.

He didn't feel anything. He didn't blink as blast ricocheted outward with a furious blue band that snapped at everything in its wake. There were men on the Death Star. He didn't know, he wasn't told, but suddenly he knew that there had been and now there weren't. He didn't feel anything at all.

Done, over. Solved. Finally.

Lars let go. He turned away from the light of the blast that blew away all the shadows on the faces of the engineer corps, and pushed his way back through them. All of them were standing, dumb and stupid with slack limbs and jaws, like _they_ were the dead men. Just as he escaped the crowd, someone began to sob. Something about weddings, or maybe children, or maybe funerals. He didn't hear.

He'd fixed the problem.

Except Vader caused a brand new problem.

All of the Black Squadron was either back or dead, except him. And there was no _fucking _way Vader was dead. Vader had crashed three ships in the thirty-six hours that Lars had been dragged along with him, and he'd walked away from each burning wreckage.

Lars's gaze went to the viewport. The debris of the Death Star was still burning against the shields, so the tractor beam wouldn't be any use, and the Imperials didn't care to find those unlucky bastards who survived out there. Except Vader.

Nobody had said that and nobody had told him that the Empire didn't care to pick the carcasses of its battles clean of the wounded. But they were whispering about it. Every other bay in the hangar was occupied with the Black Squadron's TIEs except for Vader's, and Lars was still trying to straighten the starsforsaken calibrator.

Not whispering about survivors. Whispering about _Vader_.

—-_Vader's down. Vader's dead._

—_if Vader's not dead he'll kill us for the delay!_

—_what about the Emperor? He'll kill _us—

—_no, no, no, it was the new man. The one that Vader brought back, the Emperor will kill _him_—_

—_shush, he can hear you, you know what they say about Vader's men—_

Whispers. Whispers, whispers, they were all whispering, all the time—_he's the son of Skywalker, the freed slave—he can speak to the master—the master will draw blood for this—_

There _was _blood. There was blood running down his back. Luke, why is there blood? Blood in the sands, blood in his mouth, blood in the water. Blood in his eyes.

COWARD.

He could see red, everywhere.

Lars slammed the hydrospanner back down on the calibrator. The screen cracked straight down the middle. He bit back a snarl, spanner nearly breaking in his grip, and turned around.

Straight-backed. _The slave thinks he's freed, he stands too tall, master._ Straight-backed, proud, free, free, _free_.

"Hey!" he barked. He didn't shout, but everyone stopped like he had, looking at him with wide eyes. "Which one of you was in charge before me?"

Nervous eyes, twitching back and forth. Men twisted and nudged and shrugged. Lars glared.

Fucking _finally_, a man stepped forward from behind a console.

"I'm Hudsaba Maberust," the man said. He had red hair, and looked pissed. "_Former _Chief Engineer. _Now _Second Engineer."

"Show me how to get to the bridge," Lars demanded. That was what they called it, right? The other technicians were shifting and muttering, and Lars belatedly realized that Maberust looked surprised. And not any happier than before.

"You can't go to the bridge!" Maberust protested. There was some twittering, and a few broke out into outright laughter. "Not without orders! You may not be—"

Lars ignored the rest of what he said. _Skywalker can go to the throne room he can speak with the masters_ rang in his ears. He ignored that, too, and leaned in to grab the collar of his uniform.

"That wasn't a question," Lars told him. The man's eyes were wide, but the rest of the bridge was still laughing.

On a second thought, Lars wrapped his other hand around the man's throat. The hangar went dead silent.

About damned time.

He could feel his pulse underneath his fingertips. Or maybe that was just a memory of a feeling.

"Now, do you want to find Vader or not?"

All he could hear was the man's heavy, labored breathing until another technician stepped forward.

"You can—you can find Lord Vader? Sir?" The other, older man asked hesitantly.

Lars dropped his hands. Maberust stood stockstill where Lars had left him.

"I can do some fucking simple math," Lars said flatly. He turned around and strode towards the door.

Maberust followed. The hangar was still quiet.

* * *

Maberust was silent the rest of the trip, which was took nearly an entire hour. For each elevator the entered, level they went up, and corridor they walked, uniforms got tidier, doors got thicker, and stormies got more suspicious.

That was a sight to see. Back on Tatooine, the only thing Lars had ever seen stormtroopers do was drink and use slaves for target practice.

Maberust waved, with shaking hands, his pass at every stormtrooper and gray-uniformed officer they passed, which made trip even damned longer. Lars took a look at every viewport they passed, which got bigger and bigger the further up they got, and tried to straighten out his calculations to account for the time the walk was dragging on. Stars. They must've walked a solid two miles to get up from the engineering bays and they weren't even at the bridge yet.

Finally, they hit a pair of blast doors guarded by a dozen stormies lining the hallway leading to it. Maberust handed the pass and a datachip to him with sweaty hands.

"Sir," he said, still a twice dozen paces from the troopers. "Do you know what you're doing?"

So he was fucking _sir _now? All it took was a hand around his throat and the kid folded? No wonder Vader couldn't stand these bastards.

Lars snatched the passes from Maberust's hands. They were still shaking. "Keep up."

Maberust stammered out some sort of _yes sir _and Lars ignored him, striding forward to the troopers.

"Identification and verification!" the first one to the left barked, next to a control panel that was barely more complicated than a standard magnetic lock.

"Chief Engineer," Lars bit out, still moving onward, and slapped the passes into the trooper's arms. He fumbled for his blaster as Lars punched open the override to march straight into the bridge. "Out of my way."

It was clear who was in charge once he was there. A literal bridge split two banks of terminal bays full of sweaty uniforms with headsets down the middle. Screens about all sorts of things that Lars could only dream up: weapons, shields, supplies, reports, spies, words he didn't even know. Up towards the massive viewport that spanned a full three hundred and sixty degrees, half a dozen officers stood at another bank of terminals with navigation screens and holodisplays of an entire armada of ships.

In the middle of it all, a slip of a man stood with medals across his chest. _Metals are for kings and freedmen. _

As soon as Lars caught sight of him, the man himself turned to face him. Probably the stormtroopers clattering about and yelling behind him, though they didn't try to cuff him. Smarter than the Tatooinian ones, at least.

The admiral, commander, general, whatever––had a burn scar. Blind eye. That couldn't mean anything good. Lars crossed his arms and felt for the handle of one of the blades within his wrappings.

"Chief Engineer," Lars said, short. "I can find Vader."

Every line on the man's face tightened. "Lord Vader is not _lost._ He has simply _yet _to _return_."

Really? Lars nearly smiled, and on an afterthought realized he was almost amused. Whatever. That wasn't his fucking problem. He didn't say anything, because if he did, it'd get him shot by the ten stormtroopers standing behind him the two on either side.

"However…" The man took a step closer and waved off the stormies. "You came here with Lord Vader? From Tatooine?"

"Yes." Lars bit back a scowl, hand still on the blade. So he knew him, did he? We all know you, tell him he was the starsdamned _Chief Engineer? _

The man still stared at him. What, did he want him to say _sir_? Vader could stay lost, if that was the case.

Lars looked again at the admiral's face, which was curling into a sneer, and unexpectedly wanted to laugh. Looked like the admiral knew it, too.

"What do you need?" the admiral asked, before pausing. He added: "Chief Engineer…?"

Lars looked around at the terminal bays, before he found what he was looking for: a vector coordinate readout, the ship sitting in the center, the _Destroyer _or _Devastator, _whatever it was called.

He swung himself down from the bridge and pushed past the uniforms murmuring into their headsets, fiddling with switches, and staring at him with wide eyes until he found the uniform he wanted. Why the hell were people always looking at him? Weren't they supposed to be doing their starsdamned jobs?

His fingertips itched the urge to take something apart and build it up again. Those terminals…your name isn't Lars that's a freedman's name ––are you as good as your slave father––if he could get his hands on them, he could make them better, faster, stronger…

"You," he barked. "Recalculate the vector angles based on the Death Star's last recorded coordinates and start counterclockwise from quadrants one, three, five, and seven. Track the pattern…" he tried to calculate the pattern. Left wing blown, force from the explosion upwards––"from the arccosine up to sixty-five degrees on a three-hundred and sixty rotation. Limit distance from the Death Star to two hundred meters."

He turned back around and pointed at the curly-haired kid he'd seen at the spectroscopy readings. "You! Tune to plutonium readings."

"Sir?" the officer stammered.

"Or whatever else is proton torpedo detonation systems," he said impatiently.

"Sir?" the officer asked again, this time frozen over her keyboard and looking up at the admiral. The deck was quiet, Lars noted belatedly. Nobody was speaking into their headsets anymore.

The admiral's falhawk-sharp gaze caught on Lars before it snapped back to her. "Do as he says!"

She obeyed, quickly, and Lars kept an eye on the terminal. The display was fuzzy. Did every terminal on this ship need its wires realigned?

"How do you know this?" demanded the admiral from up on the bridge.

Lars crossed his arms and turned back, only after he was sure the officer had tuned to the right lengths. "I saw the battle out the viewports."

"And you knew it was proton torpedoes that were fired on Lord Vader?"

So he wasn't stupid. Made sense. No other reason they'd keep a half-blind man around who hadn't even bothered with a replacement eye.

"Explosion pattern."

The admiral didn't say anything else, but it wasn't like Lars didn't notice the seven different blasters still trained on him from the troopers.

"I've got a read!" the first officer suddenly cried. "Tracking a small craft a fifteen hundred klicks starboard! Forwarding to you, Drav!"

A second, then––"Readings match, Admiral. Sending them to navigation now!"

"Send two guardian-class light cruisers with two squadrons, now!" the admiral barked.

Finally.

Lars swung himself back up onto the bridge and wandered out as the bridge sprang into action, Maberust scurrying along behind him. That was done.

* * *

Lars had been back down in the Black Squadron hangar for only two hours, hacking apart another useless calibrator, when a voice crackled over the announcement system.

"Chief Engineer to hangar one-hundred and three. I repeat, Chief Engineer to hangar one-hundred-three at the order of Admiral Montferrat."

Lars glared up at the ceiling. Problems with Vader never ended, did they.

* * *

Maberust followed him, which was probably good, because if he didn't, Lars would've walked himself into the brig and been done with it.

Hangar 103 was at the very bottom of the belly of the star destroyer and had blast doors big enough to fit an army of troopers through. Probably the reason why, actually.

But the troopers were all standing nervously against the wall opposite and the admiral's collection of uniforms were trying to hide behind them, in a little circle around the admiral. Montferrat himself had a sheen of sweat glimmering on his brow, trembling hands folded behind him, standing ten paces from the blast doors and everyone else ten paces behind him.

Lars shoved himself past the first couple stormies, who then obediently moved aside for him to face Monferrat.

Lars crossed his arms.

"Chief Engineer," Montferrat greeted, voice wobbling like his hands. "Lord Vader has been—has been asking for you."

Of fucking course. "What does he want?"

The stormies sounded like they were rattling out of their armor behind him. Montferrat's pale eyes bulged like a squashed skull's.

"He did not _mention _it," Montferrat snapped. "Go in and attend to his lordship immediately!"

_His lordship. _Great. Lars turned to face the blast door, back to the troopers, and waited as the doors opened.

Lars stepped in, the doors snapping closed quick behind him, and scowled.

The hangar was massive, for corvettes and cruisers, not TIEs, and the entire thing had been _wrecked. _Maybe a hundred ships had been housed here and every single one of them looked like scrap. An entire cruiser was crumpled under a wall and had taken a couple transports with it, wings sheared off, and the wing itself was lodged in the ceiling several hundred meters above. Lars's hand went to his long-gone rag before he even registered the cloudy air, dusky with smoke, sparking wires, and the slow chug of pooling coolant and fuel.

He was_ not_ cleaning this up.

Something hit his boot, and Lars looked down to kick the blaster away with a skitter. An officer was mangled underneath an even worse-off ship, limbs twitching in death throes and hole in his chest. He could see his ribs.

The only ozone in the air was from blasters, not a laser sword. Looked like Vader had used his fists alone.

Lars stepped over the dead man and had to step over a couple dozen more, troopers, pilots, and officers alike, boots soaking in with blood and viscera that mixed with the marrow of split bones and sprays of scattered teeth, still-pulsing organs, and the innards of leaking shuttles.

There was barely a path to make it through the corpses of men and ships alike. Lars irritatedly had to shove a wing and half a nav system balancing precariously on a corvette's cadaver out of his way, which ended up falling down and bisecting a stormtrooper beneath it, armor squeaking as it snapped in two and plunged wetly into the man's already halved abdomen.

Ten feet beyond that, Vader, helmet bowed and hand on his sword, leaned against the hunched, disfigured frame of the TIE Advanced.

_That, _he'd be fixing, no doubt.

"You wanted to see me?"

Vader's head shot up, and Lars didn't flinch, but he had a hand on the handles of his longest and sharpest blades.

"You…" Vader rasped. It shouldn't be making that noise. Lars glared. He'd fixed the vocoder, Vader must've disrupted it again. Vader flung out an arm towards the TIE Advanced, and stood up fully. "Get to work."

Lars snarled under his breath and stalked forward, taking a vibroblade out anyway, if only so he could hack through the mutilated wings.

Lars could feel Vader's gaze on him as he wrestled his way into the interior of the TIE, trying to find any salvage.

Half in the frame of the cockpit, which was bent entirely on its side, Lars had to drop down into the hull to get to computer systems. He knocked open the mostly-crushed casing with the butt of a wrench. The innards of the system spilled out, scattering into a thousand and one pieces at his feet.

Lars hefted himself back out onto the shell of the TIE.

"There's nothing to fix."

Vader sneered. "It's there, isn't it? Rebuild it!"

"Sure," Lars said dryly. It'd be easier to make a new one. "If you gave me two years."

Vader snarled wordlessly, and flung out a hand. Lars watched as a couple severed wing from somewhere deep in the back of the hangar screamed towards the ceiling and impaled themselves there, causing the lights to whimper and flicker.

"What are you _here _for?" Vader demanded.

"Not to be your maid," Lars barked back. "If you want me to fix your ships, stop fucking destroying them. And––" he jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "I'm not cleaning up that shit, either."

Lars's other hand was still on his unsheathed vibroblade, and he waited for Vader to launch himself at him. Instead, Vader stilled.

Lars dropped back down into the cockpit, intent on scavenging the scrap of the nav system.

"You. You have never…lied to me," Vader said, voice echoing from somewhere outside, "betrayed me."

"No," he answered, sifting through the casings on the wires. The hell would he lie to Vader about, anyway? He was here to fix his ships and didn't even want to do that.

"Face me," Vader demanded.

Lars growled under his breath, dropped the wires, and heaved himself back up out of the turned-over cockpit.

"What."

Vader was swaying, slightly, but Lars couldn't see any damage to his gyroscopic stabilizers.

"Tatooine," Vader said, and if Lars blinked, he could see twin suns behind his eyes. "On Tatooine, did you know of a man named Obi-Wan Kenobi?"

"No." He hadn't known much of anyone on Tatooine, and hadn't wanted to, but––it struck––Luke come with me––"Kenobi."

"Yes." Vader moved forward, towards him, almost eager, nearly towering over him, control box at his eye level.

"There was an old man named Ben Kenobi who lived on the edge of the Jundland Wastes."

"Did he live with anyone else?" Vader demanded. Lars watched warily, out of the corner of his eye, as his hand raised and then clenched, like he was trying to grasp something. "A boy?"

"I don't know," Lars said. Vader's vocoder made a strange sound, like a cross between a snarl and growl, and Lars snapped: "How the hell would I know? I saw him twice, maybe."

And hid the other times––COWARD.

"_And?" _snarled Vader.

"He was a crazy old man who everyone thought was a wizard," Lars snapped. "If he lived out in the Wastes, any family's dead."

Vader's voice came out strained and shades away from a roar. "I did not say _family._"

Lars's fist tightened around the blade. Come with me––step away––"And."

Vader stood still a second longer, then pulled away.

"Report to my quarters in one full day cycle with the coordinates ready."

"You taking me back to Tatooine?" Lars called at his retreating back.

Vader didn't answer, and left him alone in the makeshift morgue.

Kenobi, Lars repeated to himself. And almost said sorry, but that was a long time past for the both of them. A couple years ago he even would have said _serves him right. _


	2. acceleration

_CHAPTER TWO_

ACCELERATION

_The rate at which the velocity of a body changes with time, and the direction in which that change is acting._

* * *

So. It turned out old Ben really was a wizard.

The thought hung over Lars's shoulders no matter how many times he shrugged it off. He had dumped out flight data out of a random datachip he'd found in one of the ships, logged it with the coordinates, and handed it off to Maberust who scurried it off to Vader.

A day cycle later and he was in the cockpit of another TIE Advanced. This one wasn't wrecked, thank the stars, but he was still elbows-deep in the innards of the fuselage trying to sort out whatever Vader had done to Mark 6's landing sequencing. Somehow he'd destroyed both the reverse thrusters _and _the landing struts and fried the wires between the two.

The smell of all those corpses had filtered up through the vents. Lars hadn't noticed it when he'd been draining coolant and fuel because, unlike Tatooine, there were no suns to roast the bodies like spits turning over a fire.

The old wives used to say that the Tuskens did that. They'd steal beneath the suns and snatch up good men and women and light a fire from the rubble of a homestead. They would bind you to a pike and let you cook before they carved you up to eat.

The Tuskens didn't. Those were stories to scare kids. But whenever Lars smelled burning flesh, sweet and sickly (and once––just once––he'd been hungry enough that it smelled _good_) he thought of those tales.

The sharp scent of blood and the filth of innards eventually ate up the ozone and burn. Vader hadn't done much damage with his sword. He'd ripped those men apart with his hands.

Or, Lars thought idly, working the damaged fan out of the casing of the fuselage––not fists. The…magic.

Was Kenobi supposed to be able to do that? Didn't seem likely. Lars's mind dredged up a sundrenched half-memory, old Ben hunched over and tottering through Anchorhead's market, his own hand tight in Beru's––

Lars brought the fan closer, running his gloved fingers over the bent blades. Not unsalvageable. But he didn't have any of his welding gear, or even a decent hammer…

It'd be a quick fight. Merciless, maybe, but quick.

Lars cast the fan aside with a quick flick of the hand, and the blades squeaked and squealed as they impaled themselves the casing of Mark 7.

Couldn't be saved. The man was old, anyway, and if it was quick, it might be painless, too.

* * *

At some point, the smell burning bodies faded. It was pushed out by the stringent smell of chemicals. Cleaning chemicals, Lars assumed, which was sort of funny.

Last couple places he'd seen a pile of bodies, they didn't get cleaned up. They were part of the palace.

* * *

There was a noise behind him and he was happy to ignore it.

In the two-and-a-half days he'd been here, he'd heard every moan and groan a ship could make, and he was starting to think Vader needed to hire a half-dozen more Chief Engineers. He'd never worked on a Star Destroyer before, but he was pretty sure nothing should be making this much noise. Maybe he'd yank out a panel or two to inspect the walls after he was done with Mark 6…

Lars wrenched another outfitting out of position and cursed under his breath as he tried to dodge a splatter of oil coming from him. His safety goggles had been left on Tatooine, thanks again to Vader––

"Sir!" called a voice. Lars yanked himself out from the undercarriage and sat straight up, only to come face to face with Maberust.

"What?" he demanded. How did he even get in here? Hadn't Vader said only he was allowed in here?

"Lord––Lord Vader requires you to attend to him, sir," Maberust said. Figured.

"Fine," he grunted, standing. He'd finally made some progress on those ships, and now this.

Maberust opened and closed his mouth as he walked toward him.

"Sir," Maberust finally said, but didn't say anything else.

Lars wiped his gloved hands down with a rag. If he had something to say, he could spit it out. "Just get this over with."

* * *

The last time Lars had been in Vader's chambers was nearly two days ago and he'd never wanted to go back.

Vader's place was dark. And cold. There wasn't a single glowlight in the place, only a white pod that unfolded like a snapping blossom. It was completely bare, except for the holodisplays, and seemed to Lars to only get darker the further in, like the mouth of a cave. It was nothing like the hut he'd had back in Anchorhead, two rooms overflowing with spare parts and extra maybe-usefuls, noontime suns beating down.

Still. Better than a lot of other dark, dank holes he'd been in.

Lars grew more and more irritated every step he took pacing after Maberust. He didn't know if he remembered the way, but he did know better than to mention it to the other man. _A job, _Vader had said. Ha. Lars was pretty sure most jobs for the Empire didn't involve betraying it.

The minute they had gotten up to Vader's quarters––somewhere just below the bridge by Lars's estimate––Maberust tried to become one with the wall. The split-second the blastdoors slid open into a blank, three-door hallway, empty of even the stormies who seemed to crop up every ten meters, he turned tail and ran after a hasty salute.

That was fine. He went straight for the door at the end, busy pulling stilettos out of his bindings, anyway.

The door slid open, revealing only the shadow of Vader's form somewhere in the back, cast by a holodisplay. Vader's armor and padded had all been replaced, and he had a cape, too, so he looked more or less just like when Lars had pulled him out of the TIE on Tatooine. Fake control panel in front of the modified control box too, he'd bet.

He didn't look up as Lars approached from behind.

"What else do you want."

"I warn you," Vader said idly, crossing his arms, continuing to examine the display in front of him. Star Destroyer schematics, it looked like. "I am not in the most patient mood."

Oh, that was _funny. _Neither was _he. _

"I've helped you blow up the Death Star," Lars said, swapping out half of the stilettos in his grip for the longest knife he had. "I've given you coordinates for old Kenobi."

He held the knife up to the light of the holodisplay that snuck behind Vader's back. He flipped it once, twice, in his hand, checking the blade.

"I signed up to be a _mechanic_. Not a spy."

Sharp enough.

"And either you want me to help you rig up another Death Star to blow. But you're not joining the Rebellion, are you? And you'd kill me, because I know too much. And it seems like you're pretty good at that."

Nothing but Vader's breathing filtered through the gap between them. Lars crossed his arms, hiding the knives only from sight.

"So. What more do you from me?"

Vader turned, slowly, to face him. Lars barely came up to the control box. But he didn't falter, breath even, hands steady.

"I want," Vader said, short. "A mechanic."

"A mechanic that helps you blow up Death Stars."

"Fixing my ships is in your job description, is it not?"

"Isn't _Imperial _in yours?"

Vader considered him. "You're growing more irritating by the second, mechanic."

He bared his teeth, almost amused. But he waited, hands on the handles of his blades.

"I am the heir to my master, the Emperor," Vader said, almost casually. "My will is that of the Empire's. And the Death Star was a waste. An abomination."

_What about the Emperor? If Vader's dead, the Emperor will kill us––_Lars remembered the whispers in the engineering bays.

Definitely not joining the Rebellion, then.

"All will be forgotten when I am Emperor. And _my_ Empire will contain no such frivolities."

"I don't give a damn about the Empire," Lars snapped, "I'm here to fix your ships, and I don't even want that."

The air just about froze over, Lars realized belatedly. He didn't much care.

Vader's glare, though, was hot. He was close enough that he thought he saw Vader's eyes, through the mask, meet his.

"This body," Vader's voice scraped like claws ripping through metal. "This wretched form. You have seen its damage. You have…repaired it."

Lars met his gaze. "And."

"_Kenobi_," growled Vader. "Kenobi, the _coward _who hid on Tatooine for _twenty years_, who battled me above the Death Star––_he _did this."

Old Kenobi––what, wizard and warrior? The old man, tottering around the market, out in a hut in the desert and barely tolerating its heat? Vader dared him to question him.

But. Back, back a lifetime ago, through the screen, huddling to hide himself, and old Kenobi _there, _paces from him, standing tall and proud––

Lars didn't say anything.

"And you, _mechanic, _will help me _fix _it." Vader took a half-step closer. "Fix me, and you have nothing to fear from me. You will be nothing more than my mechanic."

"_Your _mechanic means more than fixing ships," Lars growled.

"Yes," said Vader. "But don't you like fixing ships that actually fly, mechanic, and don't sit rusting in a junkyard?"

Lars couldn't answer that. _You fix, I fly, _he remembered, from a long time ago.

Vader turned his back on him. "Begone from my presence. The Emperor awaits me. There are further instructions for you across the corridor."

* * *

Across the corridor were a couple of stormies.

"Lord Vader requires you to be in uniform, sir," reported the one on the left.

Did that stormie just call him _sir? _

"Uniform grays are waiting for you in there, sir," piped up the one on the right, before pointing helpfully to the door at the left of the entrance to Vader's chambers. "Lord Vader also requires that you…bathe."

"What."

The stormies exchanged glances.

"Lord Vader said that there was, uh, sand," said Left. "Sir."

What.

Did Vader think he was fool enough to grit ruin a machine? After he'd put back together his fucking skeleton on _Tatooine_?

Lars snarled to himself and stormed through to the chamber, shoving the stormies out of the way. The door snapped closed behind him.

It was all black and dark like the rest of Vader's chambers, but at least this place looked like an actual human was supposed to live there. Some rich admiral, maybe. The full room was at least three times as large as his old shop, with the most advanced holoprojectors and holodisplays lining one wall and actual, real wood cabinets lining the other.

Underneath a full viewport sat a dining set laid with porcelain and silver and _flowers. _A massive, carved wooden desk sat opposite, with a slim computer terminal atop, and a chair that looked leather. An adjoining room held a bed with a landscape overtop.

Maybe he should just rob the place, Lars thought numbly, picking up the gray tunic sitting on the desk next to the leather boots. It was a standard thing he'd seen the drunk off-duty Imperials around Tatooine wear to the bars. It was still nicer than anything he'd ever held.

He cast his gaze to the door and locked the magnetic seal. Then he pulled out a screwdriver, took the casing and a couple wires apart, and decided it was locked better.

Whatever. He didn't like this, but he didn't want to be bothered by every officer on the entire Star Destroyer about his dress, either.

Slowly, he pulled off his singlet and began pulling out the spare, tools, and scraps in his pockets. He unthinkingly tallied and organized it on the desk. He pulled his longest knives––eighteen inches and slightly curved––out of each cloth-bound boot, the other couple knives he had hidden in his boots as well, and a couple of spare wires, before removing his overalls.

He took off his gloves before he pulled out more blades and tools and spares, then unwound the leather binding his arms. The cloth came next.

Lars brought three knives with him into the bathroom.

It was dark, but gleaming tile, and with a shower bigger than an oil vat. Lars flipped the switch, expecting a sonic shower, and sputtered in surprise as droplets hit his head.

_No way. _

He stared up, wide-eyed, as the water ran down without end. His heart beating fast, he fumbled with the control, until the water was cool and pleasant––he couldn't remember _ever_ having cold water on Tatooine––and rushing straight at him.

He stepped under, hair plastering to his head, staring at the drops running down his hands in a disbelief that was a little more like awe. He looked up, standing straight underneath, until the water cascaded down in a sheet around him.

And––wait––

_No––_

He couldn't––he _couldn't––_

He choked, ragged breath after ragged breath seizing his lungs. Water pounded a tattoo against his heart. No, wait, wait, no––he clapped his hands to his mouth, stumbling back until his back hit the wall and his legs gave out.

He breathed in. Water was rushing in, choking him, _killing him––_

You have pleased the master, Skywalker.

No, no no––the water beat against his head, _screaming_ in his head––he screwed his eyes shut and slammed his head against the wall.

You get first pick today.

He choked and gagged and sputtered and tried to breathe but he was––was he _drowning?_

You get water today.

He fought for the breath that battered up and out through chest, one hand scrabbling up to grab the wall and dig _in, _crush and hold it tight up debris and dust sprayed down on his head and he stumbled to his feet and his knees hit the floor of the bathroom.

He breathed. In. Out. In. Out. He could breathe. He wasn't drowning. No, no, not anymore––

_Skywalker ––_

He vomited into the toilet.

_The master has said––_

He'd forgotten about that.

* * *

"You have disappointed me, Lord Vader," Palpatine said, voice high and cruel and dispassionate.

Vader's limbs––the new prosthetics and real stumps––spasmed from the aftershocks of the lightning.

"It will not happen again, Master," Vader vowed, still on his knees in front of the projection. His HUD was lit up with warning signs. "I will find Obi-Wan Kenobi."

"Will you?" Palpatine scorned him. Vader clenched a fist, tight, and said nothing. "Twice he's bested you. And this time in space, too. What happened to the _Skywalker?"_

Vader saw red. "Skywalker is dead, Master."

"Then see to it that his master is, as well," Palpatine said, dismissively. "But you are under Grand General Tagge's command, as he is new Supreme Commander of the Imperial Armed Forces."

"Yes, Master," Vader said, teeth gritted.

"Oh?" Palpatine asked, leaning forward, a sickly leer over Vader. "Is that _anger, _I sense, my apprentice? Do you question my commands?"

"No, Master," Vader said, the words thick and cloying on his tongue. "Only the Dark Side fuels me. I wish to destroy Kenobi for good."

Palpatine's smile broadened. "Well, my apprentice, consider this your punishment for your failure at the Death Star. Your hunt for Kenobi will be only at Tagge's digression."

Palpatine's image vanished with a wink.

Vader let his breaths fill the space. Once, twice.

First Kenobi. _And then you, my master. _

Something pulsing unfurled in Vader's veins, sending his heart racing beyond the suit's capabilities, something that beat in his ears and drowned out the rest of the world.

Anakin's son, Kenobi's voice whispered. It roared in him, now.

_SKYWALKER._

* * *

"What happened to you?"

Lars's hair was still damp. He'd put on the damn uniform, all of his blades and tools and most of his spare and scrap smuggled away again, but he'd tied the jacket around his waist in favor of his singlet, bound forearms, and gloves. If Vader wanted him to get any work done, he wouldn't complain about it.

Vader didn't look like he could complain about much of anything. Everything about his stance was off_, _cape and fake control panel gone, but Vader ignored him and turned around, deeper into his chambers.

The movement was stiff, Lars noted, but not in the legs; around the hips, instead, but he'd removed the crude exoskeleton that had attached there. All of those shitty parts had to have left their mark, but still––the legs were also strangely shaky, like a fuse had blown, but––

The pungent smell of grease and oil was enough for Lars's curiosity to smother his flickers of annoyance, and he slunk behind Vader.

The short corridor opened into a massive, vaulted room, industrial glowlights dangling from heavy durasteel chains, with at least ten different slabs stacked with unfinished projects and drafts. Three walls were lined with meticulously organized drawers labelled with any screw, wire, and bit a mechanic could dream of. The fourth wall was twelve feet by thirty feet of every type of hydrospanner, multitool, and wrench Lars had ever seen in his life, and hundreds that he hadn't.

Looked like the Empire paid well.

A series of projects went crashing off one of the slabs with a flick of Vader's hand. He hefted himself up––not easily, Lars noted––and Vader laying back on the slab involved less flexibility then the stiffest protocol droid.

'Course. More things to fix.

Lars drew a vibroblade and sliced through the armorweave on Vader's thigh the second he went down. He pried open the material the same way he used to gut womp rats for cooking when he was younger.

"The hell happened?"

"The Emperor was displeased with the destruction of the Death Star."

Lars bit back a curse.

The condition of the prosthetics was fine, but the wires had nearly been fried. It was a miracle that Vader wasn't screaming his head off. The small patches where the insulation wasn't tight enough or slipped a bit had let a charge burn through it, and no doubt it was yanking on Vader's nerve endings. The skeleton of the prosthetic hadn't carried the charge _much, _but the prosthetic port looked like it had blistering around it from burns. Hell knew what had gone on in the rest of his body.

Lars stared at it, blankly. Had Vader hooked himself up to a generator?

"The Emperor wields a secret art of the Force known as Force lightning," Vader supplied.

Lars didn't know what the Force was, but he sure as hell knew what lightning was. And what it did to machines.

"The Emperor's supposed to be on Coruscant," Lars said, a little dumbly.

"He is," Vader replied. "That does not mean he cannot reach me."

"Shit," he said, already reaching for a hydrospanner. "Fine, I'm going to need to redo all this. And the control panel. Wait on killing me till I'm done."

Vader grasped Lars's wrist before he could touch a single thing. Lars switched the grasp of his other hand from the hydrospanner to the handle of a vibroblade.

"What."

"I need something from you," rumbled Vader.

"Yeah, a retuning and an oil bath," snapped Lars.

Vader ignored him. "Kenobi. The last time you saw him."

Lars's hand tightened on the handle of his blade.

"Years ago," he said shortly. "Don't remember where. Or when."

"The Force is the power that I wield," Vader continued, letting go of his wrist, "and it is power beyond your comprehension. All you need to do is think of Kenobi, and I will see him."

Lars…believed that Vader could do that. Why not? He'd slaughtered at least two dozen of his own men a day ago, with nothing but his own hands.

"My life is already in your hands," said Vader, "you could kill me, if you really wanted."

True. A knife through the control panel while Vader was busy mindmelding or whatever the fuck would do it.

Lars twisted the vibroblade in his hand, eyeing its balance as the blade caught the light of the glowlamps.

What's the point of killing Kenobi? Lars wanted to ask. What's the point of becoming Emperor? He wanted to go back down to the TIE Advanced o6 and lose himself in the engine with a multitool in hand.

It wouldn't fix anything. But it wouldn't hurt him. What did he care, anyway?

"Fine," said Lars, suddenly tired. "Let's find Kenobi."

Lars twisted the vibroblade so rested just between two switches on Vader's control panel. Kill shot, he thought. Not even the thought of that could rouse the weariness settling into his bones.

Vader offered up his skeletal left hand. One hand held the blade. With the other, Lars grasped Vader's.

* * *

_wow, guys! thanks so much for all the positive support, it means the world to me :D hm, lars and vader's relationship seems to be getting better…or is it? kinda funny how lars seems to be more normal the more danger he's in, huh._


	3. force

Chapter Text

CHAPTER THREE

FORCE

_An interaction that, when unopposed, will change the motion of an object._

* * *

The Death Star exploded brilliantly, silently, and the last thing Obi-Wan heard before his X-wing threw itself into hyperspace was Han Solo shouting at him through the comms.

"Kenobi! Did _Darth fucking Vader_ just blow up the _Death Star?_"

Did he?

Obi-Wan stared blankly out into the billowing blue mindmeld of hyperspace, but it was the explosion of the Death Star that was seared into Obi-Wan's eyes.

He did, didn't he.

Darth Vader had blown up his Empire's own death-dealing terror as little more than an afterthought. Vader had tried to tear him to _pieces _through the Force, clawing at him with the ferocity of a starving, rabid dog. He could feel the Force pulsing around him, weeping like a wound open to the bone, the remnants of his and Anakin's bond like the stump of a severed limb.

_LIAR! LIAR, LIAR! _His ears were ringing with Vader's screams. _MY CHILD, HE LIVES!_

It wasn't the unsettling brass of Vader's vocoder that rang in his ears, though. It was _Anakin's _voice. Older, rougher, _angrier_––but it was Anakin's voice. Not Vader. Not Vader.

Was it Vader who blew up the Death Star, then? Was it _Anakin? _Is that why he felt like he should be reporting back to Master Windu about the newest Star Destroyer that Anakin had wrecked?

_Years _he'd spent convincing himself that Anakin was dead and Vader had risen from the ashes. But now, both were too close for comfort: Vader, with Anakin's voice and Anakin's _rage_ and _Anakin's son…_

Luke.

Obi-Wan blinked, looking down at his unsteady hands through glassy eyes. Obi-Wan had slipped _once_, too furious for his own good, with one misstep in their disastrous duel, and Vader had torn out of him everything he'd wanted to know. Or––hadn't known.

_YOU TOOK––?_

Vader hadn't known. Somehow, _somehow, _by the luck of the Force, Vader _hadn't known _that man he had inexplicably saved on Tatooine was his own son. He'd taken Luke anyway, but hadn't killed Luke––not yet––and_ now_––Obi-Wan had tried to take it back, tried to lie, but Vader––

A droplet fell on his fist. Obi-Wan slowly stretched out his hands. He was numb to the bone, and no good at piloting, just like he'd been nineteen years ago and clutching a newborn. Just like then, Obi-Wan breathed in, out, and remembered that this was for Anakin's children. Anakin's son was in Vader's hands now. But his daughter was safe.

If only Leia's protection hadn't come at the price of her brother's.

* * *

"We meet again, old friend."

In Lars's memory, the boy could barely hear the man over the cacophony of Jabba's court. Drunken shrieking, rattling of dancers' chains, and wailing music; it all echoed through the air in a blur of the thousand memories Lars had of this place, misting into one dim haze.

But Vader––Vader would never forget Obi-Wan Kenobi's voice.

Was he even on Tatooine? Vader wondered. It was dark, cool; Obi-Wan's voice was genial. He breathed on his own, a silver puff in front of him; his flesh-and-blood hands clammy and rough as he clutched his own shoulders. Stealing between the memories of another man, in the cracks between Lars-then and Lars-now and both presences casting long shadows across their own memories, he could almost slip away. Maybe he was somewhere in his own memories, tucked under his quilt in his room at the Temple, Obi-Wan in the front room of their chambers with another master––

A laugh rumbled from somewhere deep in the dark, dank throne room. He couldn't see him, but it didn't matter: sound died, struck dead in a split second. The wet air froze over.

"Jee canta tytung bu Jeedai gee kahka doptkee. Hocan wata uba doth, Kotka Kenobi!"

_I thought all the Jedi had died out. Yet here you are, Master Kenobi._

Sweat trickled down his spine. Fear that wasn't his own hammered rapidly at his heart. His breath sped up. His lungs yanked at his chest, whistling with some lingering sickness.

_The master. ––_He thought, Lars thought, the boy thought, all at once or none at all. He clenched his jaw to stop it from chattering until it whined. He inched as close as he dared to the grate in the wall, bare inches above the floor, and peaked into the throne room through a forest of legs. He clasped the decorative screen of the grate, iron cool and rough under his sweaty palms, knuckles white.

_Lars,_ Vader remembered as something tugged at him, an unfamiliar pulse drumming in the back of his mind. It was Lars's start of shock at seeing his own hands. Child's hands, too, crusted with dirt. Not more than ten.

A beat. Lars's young heart pounded a tattoo against his ribs.

"We are a dying species, I admit," responded Obi-Wan, his voice too steady, deadened with some sort of wretched humor. "But I was one of the lucky ones."

Vader snarled somewhere deep inside himself, struggling to maintain the patience to see through the memory. He couldn't yank too hard, or he'd rip Lars's mind to pieces. Besides––what was Obi-Wan Kenobi, his butcher, compared to the unholy relief of a few moments fully flesh?

Jabba laughed again. Vader's rage couldn't manifest when only a sliver of himself lived in the boy's mind, trapped in the boy's body: terror was scratching at the inside of his throat, clawing at his eyes. The boy wanted to cry; Vader realized belatedly.

"An haku see mah kougine pateessa, coo maban mah Rotta nei? Ahsoka Tano an bu Jeedai Poiouey Skywalker?"

_And what of my old friends, who returned my Rotta to me? Ahsoka Tano and the Jedi Knight Skywalker?_

Vader felt nothing. The boy felt nothing. Every thought and feeling had fled. His grasp loosened on the grate.

And, then, suddenly, he could feel the sharp press of cool metal against a barely-healed cut on his nose as he forced his face as close as it could go to the grate. His blood and breath pounded in his ears.

"I am afraid that both were lost," said Obi-Wan. Finally, he laid eyes on him, and hated him all the more for it. Obi-Wan looked as he had looked in all of Vader's memories; there was a streak of gray through his auburn hair and his robes were ragged, but he was––straight-backed, proud, and free. "But not all hope is."

"Kaa, Kotka Kenobi?"

"I'm sure you remember the despair you felt when young Rotta was taken from you, Master Jabba," replied Obi-Wan, with a dip of the head. The court was quiet as Jabba rumbled in agreement. "And that you would not wish that on any father."

"I humbly entreat you, in the name of the late Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, who saved your son, to help me in my quest to find his lost son."

_Lost. Lost son––_LOST_–– _

"An haku che copah hatkocanh uba wamma che mah cuee kouoioy yauma du boonowa rin Skywalker, Kotka Kenobi?"

_And what price will you pay for my most generous help in finding young Skywalker, Master Kenobi?_

"I have many skills you would find beneficial, Master Jabba."

Vader's rage was drowned out by a strike of gut-churning fear––but not his own.

"Copah," whispered the boy to himself. _Price. _

His breath hurt him, now, and his chest ached when his back slammed against the stone, cold bleeding in through his sweat-soaked shirt. The raucous noise of Jabba's court was fading into fog of Lars's mind. Misty memories were burning away with the dawn of a new one, where Vader could see the glitter of sand grains and taste blood and the glint of steel in the light of the twin suns––

––"You gotta forge on here?"

Anakin Skywalker's son. Lost. So lost Kenobi went begging like a starving dog to the table of Jabba the Hutt. But not dead. Not dead.

Vader tasted the thrill of adrenaline like blood in his mouth. _Skywalker. _His son. Out there, lost but waiting––if Kenobi couldn't find him, Skywalker was safe for now, and a hunt for him would alert the galaxy at large…

A strong twist of a spanner brought Vader back.

Vader blinked at the glowlamps hanging above him, the red of his mask once again tinting his vision. How long had passed? Lars was somewhere to his right, but that meant nothing. The mechanic had never been bothered by schedules before.

"You never saw Kenobi again." It wasn't a question. Vader was sure of it––too sure of it. He would have to make sure the hasty bond he had created between them was fully separated.

"No," said Lars, not looking up from the wiring at his arm's port.

Vader hefted himself up to sit––smooth and painless, he noted approvingly. His control box, slimmed down from Lars's previous repairs, was completely insulated inside and the wires sealed thrice over. More than thorough.

"I need a forge," said Lars, "and some good metal."

Vader cast a critical eye at Lars, who had more of the same gray insulation in hand. He was delicately twining it around some wires.

"What for?" Vader asked distrustfully, examining more of Lars's work. Both Lars and he had done well. He, in his technique, if Lars had remained unaffected by the search of his memory. "The materials on the _Devastator _are more than adequate."

He'd been out for longer than he'd thought, Vader realized with distress he refused to acknowledge. Lars had had the time––and Vader had been out of it enough––that the casing of his entire prosthetic port had been stripped and insulated. Even inside, against his skin, which was wrapped again with cotton.

There was a creep up his spine. This was––well done. Done _too _well. It may completely stop the charge of his master's lightning from reaching his flesh. Was this state he found himself in not his punishment?

_No_. Not anymore. Vader snarled beneath his mask. His son was waiting for him, heir to his Empire, and Kenobi and Palpatine's corpses would rest at his feet for their lies. He needed to be stronger than ever.

Lars lifted up Vader's disconnected arm. It was strange to see the strange black mismatched metal that Lars had fitted him with on Tatooine as opposed to the gray durasteel he was used to for so long.

"I need to redo these. Melt them down and mix 'em with something less conductible," Lars said,  
"Any more lightning and you'd probably be dead."

The Emperor was too precise for that. But––wearing him down with infinitesimally stronger shocks…that was certainly Palpatine's playbook.

"Very well," said Vader, almost absentminded. Bounty hunters first, supposedly for Kenobi. He needed to deal with Tagge, then. "Attach the arm quickly, then. It will do for now." He added, impatiently: "Don't bother with disconnecting the nerves."

Lars grumbled but complied and Vader didn't even bother to grit his teeth. With a snap and a spark of electricity, his nerves reconnected with a flash of pain that made his spine seize as Lars drove the prosthetic back into his port.

Vader rotated his left arm and stood as Lars sat back, wiping off his gloves with a rag. With a flick of the Force, one of the locked drawers hissed opened. An ingot placed itself in Vader's hand.

He offered it to Lars. "This will do best for your alloy."

Lars took the ingot from his hand, tracing over the Imperial stamp, gaze dragging to the cache in the open drawer.

"What did you do to get this amount of beskar?" asked Lars. "Skin every Mando in the galaxy?"

Vader ignored him.

"There is a forge above the brig. The beskar will be for your use at zero-three hundred hours in two day cycles. Do _not _be seen," Vader commanded.

Lars dropped the ingot, which hit the slab with a clang and turned to leave before Vader had even dismissed him. Not that it would've mattered.

"Obviously."

One problem solved but bigger ones were at hand. Tagge would soon be calling.

* * *

A day later, the remnants of the Death Star still burned brighter than the setting sun in the indigo sky of Yavin IV, and the party had yet to die.

"Wanna drink?" offered Solo. Stars knew how he'd found Obi-Wan. He'd sequestered himself away from the frenzy, cross-legged on an ancient, moss grown pillar and trying unsuccessfully to meditate in the scant few hours before the remnants of the Rebellion left the planet with the Empire quick on their heels.

Needless to say, Solo had sniffed him out faster than a Utapaun bloodhound.

Obi-Wan cracked open an eye when Solo plopped himself down on the pillar, unmarked bottle in hand, and Chewbacca next to him with an agreeable greeting.

"I can't believe there is still any alcohol left on this planet, let alone base."

"But this is the good stuff, old man!" Solo waggled the bottle in front of him, before uncorking it with his teeth. "They call it Rebel moonshine."

Obi-Wan's nose wrinkled. "It smells like ship fuel."

"Probably is," agreed Solo, taking a sip before handing it off to Chewie. "One of the pilots told me they make in their boots."

"Top shelf stuff, then," Obi-Wan said sarcastically, very sadly aware of the drinking habits of soldiers. He was all-too tempted to join them, but he'd had enough alcohol for several lifetimes. When Obi-Wan landed in the hangar of Yavin IV, he barely remembered how he'd gotten there, but he'd never forget how he was greeted by cheers and the best drinks the Rebellion had.

"So," said Solo, breaking the awkward silence before it grew on them like the moss. "Vader, huh?"

Obi-Wan surprised himself by laughing. He couldn't help it.

"Vader," he agreed.

Solo canted a displeased eyebrow at him. "Seriously? Vader tries to ram you down in the Death Star and then blows it up and that's all you can say?"

Obi-Wan folded his hands in sleeves. "I ran out of things to say about Vader a long time ago."

"I don't believe that," scoffed Solo, before picking up the medallion on his chest and waving it front of his face. "You remember Princess High'n'Mighty puttin' this on our necks instead of Darth Vader, you know, the crazy bastard who actually blew up his own goddamn Death Star? You don't even have anything to say to High Command?"

"I don't expect they'd believe me," Obi-Wan said lightly.

"No one would, which is why I'm pretty sure Vader's going to show up any second and snap our necks for having seen him do it."

For him? Certainly. But Obi-Wan was equally sure that Vader's attention would be easily split between him and his son. Vader––even as Anakin––had never been anything less than obsessive. With Luke in the hairlines of his father's sight, on his ship, and under the weight of his Empire, he doubted––knew––that there was no escape.

Especially when Luke had willingly taken Vader's hand.

"If you're a part of the Rebellion, he's coming after you anyway," deflected Obi-Wan, if only because Solo was probably right, which Obi-Wan very much despised the thought of.

Solo sneered just as Chewbacca roared at him something very degrading about what the Jedi Order had come to.

Obi-Wan scowled at that, before admitting; "Perhaps you're right."

Vader may not have known, Obi-Wan concluded, but he would know soon enough, and after that…

Leia was their last hope.

* * *

Tarkin, whatever his flaws, had vision. Grand General Tagge had graphs.

Vader stood next to the viewport of the conference room on the _Eliminator_, eyes on the movements of the _Devastator _and its fleet as the Black Squadron carried out drills. He was well aware of the eyes of the newly-promoted entourage of generals, moffs, and joint chiefs on him.

"I look at the state of the Empire and I ask myself, 'How many Star Destroyers could we have made with the resources we threw into Tarkin's Folly?'" said Tagge, from the head of the table. Vader could feel the man's gaze on him but made no move to return the favor. "The Imperial Navy is a sea. It is endless and it cannot be beaten and given enough time turns even the strongest rocks sand."

"Regardless of the Death Star's flaws," Vader interjected coldly. "There must vengeance against the Rebellion. The Emperor will want the pilot made an example of."

"Ah, yes," said Tagge, his smug air polluting the Force. "Lord Vader. What a lucky thing you survived, out there dogfighting with the Rebels. And to think the Empire nearly lost you––for a second time in nearly as many weeks."

Vader turned back around to face him, temper flaring. "There is no such thing as luck. And the pilot who shot down the Death Star knows this."

Tagge looked at him in disbelief. "And you know who the pilot was after minutes of failed dogfighting?"

Vader sneered at him behind the mask. "The Force reveals all it. It was Obi-Wan Kenobi."

Uncertainty danced across Tagge's for a second. Around him, many of the new generals' confusion was filtering into the Force.

"Do you truly think any other pilot could have made that shot, General?" Vader asked. "You remember the Clone Wars, do you not? Of what a single Jedi could do on a battlefield?"

"Our larger plans cannot be based around any individual asset," Tagge snapped, but doubt was creeping out. "Not even a Death Star. Not _you, _Vader."

"You can ask the Emperor yourself, if you wish," Vader said dismissively. "But I assure you––it was Obi-Wan Kenobi."

"Not even our spies in the Rebellion have learned who Rebel High Command confirmed as the pilot," interjected the new Director of the ISB. The rest of the Joint Chiefs were deadly silent.

"And you don't think that the pilot who destroyed the Death Star won't become a rallying point for rebels across the galaxy?" Vader dared Tagge.

Tagge narrowed his eyes. "I see you want to lead a hunt, Vader. You have forever been little better than your sword. Your armada could not even act to intercept escaping Rebel ships from Yavin."

It was only the Emperor that stopped Vader from snapping his neck, and Tagge knew it––and enjoyed it.

"And you would have rather two armadas be destroyed by the Death Star?"

The Death Star's escort––Tarkin's armada––had been blasted to bits by the Death Star's explosion. His own armada had been able to escape damage with its shields raised; Vader had learned that from the show at Alderaan.

"A mistake," Tagge insisted. "Had your men not been so fearful for your life––or you taking theirs––they should have been able to take the initiative. The amount of men and resources the Empire has compared to the Rebellion is exponential."

"And that is what the Rebellion is aiming for," Vader corrected. "A million men dead is a blow, even to the Empire, General."

A blow he had dealt and one well worth it, but Tagge didn't need to know that.

"Resources _is_ correct, Vader. The fleet's eyes will be on the hyperspace lanes, especially the Outer Rim," Tagge said crisply, with a touch of condescension. "Pirates, smugglers, syndicates––they may have been unchecked in the past, but that is precisely what is supplying the Rebellion. We will starve them out, force them into the Mid-Rim and Core, where our power is the strongest, not away from it."

The Outer Rim––Tarkin's old territory. Tagge's thirst to outdo Tarkin's memory was tangible, but all Vader scented was a weakness. It was enough to quell his bloodlust.

"And what of the fleet?" Vader asked idly. "Since Scarif was destroyed all of the Empire's plans and Advanced Weapons Research were, as well. Rebellion agents went down, too; Rebel Command surely knows. The drydocked Super Destroyers and Kuat Yards are easy targets."

"They always are," said Tagge, brusque, irritation finally breaking through in his voice. Vader made sure to helpfully yank at in the Force. "The fleet stationed there will satisfy. I have command, Vader. You may start your hunt, but let's be clear. _You _are the lightsaber. _I _am the one who wields you. You come at my command."

A dressing down in public to humiliate him. How…Kenobi. He let his breathing fill the air, watching as other men began to sweat.

"Of course, General," rumbled Vader. "I serve for the good of the Empire."

* * *

Telling time on the Star Destroyer was a pain in his ass.

There was no telling with the suns and stars, of course, and the spaceport in Vader's hangar had been blurred into hyperspace most of the time, anyway. The day and nightcycle lights were no use, mostly because the first thing Lars had done was override them. He'd scrounged up a chrono from a drawer somewhere, but it didn't mean much to him, since he didn't leave the hangar unless Vader wanted something.

Now, though, this pain in the ass was named Maberust, Second Engineer.

Lars pulled himself out of the cockpit and away from the wiring of Mark o7's sensor array at the call of Maberust, standing at the foot of the fighter.

"What now," Lars said, standing on the ladder, wiping his hands off with a rag. He was almost getting used to being interrupted.

"Sir, the reports that were left to you need to be approved," said Maberust.

"What reports?" Lars barked, already not liking the answer. This had Vader written all over it.

"The reports from the armada, sir," Maberust said, with a frown. "With repairs, upgrades, and proposals from each ship. The datachips were left at the terminal in your office, sir."

Vader was _way _more trouble than he was worth. Lars vaulted down from the ladder to land next to Maberust.

"Sir…" Maberust began, giving him that strange look again.

"Spit it out," snapped Lars, impatiently.

"Sir," Maberust repeated, looking pale. "Have you––have you left this hangar? To–– for your quarters or office or the mess, I mean."

His own shop was so much easier. Lars clenched his jaw. "Just show me wherever the fuck I'm supposed to go."

"Yes, sir."

Lars followed Maberust out of the hangar. A turbo ride ten floors up, hidden behind blast doors, and right above Vader's hangar was the circular office of the Chief Engineer.

It had three-hundred-and-sixty degrees worth of transparisteel windows that loomed down on the engineering bays below it, mechanics scurrying around from ship to ship. A couple uniforms sat at a bank of computers, monitoring the feeds from the dozens of hangars not visible. The feed didn't include Vader's hangar, though.

Lars looked around, unimpressed. It didn't look like any decent engineer had ever worked here, either. Other than the banks of terminals and the ensigns attached to them, there was a holoprojector in the middle and a small, empty drafting table absentmindedly put on one side.

"Where are the reports?" he asked Maberust. His voice made the ensigns start to jump up and start to salute him, and he waved them off irritatedly as Maberust hurried to the holoprojector to insert the datachip.

"The first report is for the _Devastator, _sir," Maberust said as a blue projection of the ship bubbled into view. "She was far enough away from the Star that she didn't suffer any major damage, and all shields and armaments are at full capacity…"

Lars ignored the rest of Maberust's droning as he flipped through the report himself. Maberust was right; the Star Destroyer was functioning fine, and the support ships housed in the _Devastator _needed nothing but regular maintenance except for the hundred or so Vader had wrecked.

But out of the hundred TIEs on the ship that had been sent out to engage the Rebels, only sixty of them had made it back. At the very end of the part marked _Devastator _was a list resource expenditure. Lars stared at the numbers and did some quick figures in his head.

"What's with all the coolant?" Lars interrupted Maberust's monologue. "Those numbers are too high for TIEs. Go through 'em for leaks. Make sure there's no electrical damage."

Maberust stumbled to a stop, fumbling for a datapad. "Yes, sir––but––"

"Salvage whatever you can from Hangar 103 and scrap the rest," Lars said, moving onto the other capital ships. Next up was the _Avenger. _"Don't waste men rebuilding that shit. Put in an order for new ships and tell anyone who asks it's Vader's fault."

Maberust made a strange noise. Lars continued: "There's too much damage to the _Avenger's _shields, check the sensor arrays to coordinate with the cannons. Same with the _Stormhawk._ The _Tyrant _needs repairs on the hyperdrive, it's lagging. Recalibrate the sensor systems of any new TIEs before launch and keep an eye on the coolant. Run a stress test to see if that's a manufacturer's problem or a mechanic's."

Lars grumbled under his breath as he looked at the reports left––nearly a hundred pages. The chrono on the stand of the holoprojector read that he had a little more than nine hours left until he needed to be at the forge.

A blueprint of a droid unfolded in the next report. Lars had never seen anything like it before: one bulbous eye protruded out of a disk that sat on a body with a dozen legs dangling down from it.

"What does this have to do with the armada." Nothing, probably, and Vader was just making life harder.

"Advanced Weapons Research and Director Krennic were all lost their lives at Scarif, sir," said Maberust, pale eyes looking up from his scribbling on the datapad.

Lars didn't know where Scarif was or what happened, but he could guess that it meant the Empire had screwed up. He zoomed in on a cross-section of the droid's cpu.

"Until a new division can be established, the Chief Engineers have been asked to supervise the projects."

Project Swarm, this one read.

"I will convey your orders, sir," Maberust said, "But night shift is about to start." A pause, before he offered: "You were assigned room 2414 in block e, sir."

Night shift? Lars pulled himself away from the blueprints. Right––and Maberust and the ensigns were waiting for _him _to dismiss them.

"Fine," Lars said, following Maberust, who dawdled for a moment before finally turning to leave. The turbolift went down one floor, exiting onto a catwalk across a hangar.

Lars stopped dead in his tracks, barely registering Maberust run into him. He grabbed the railing of the catwalk, leaning over, heart suddenly pounding––was it––it _was_––

He knew that ship. The railing was being crushed beneath his grip. He'd fixed the ship too many times to count.

_Slave I. _


End file.
